Yearly Archives: 2012

NIEUWE HERRING FESTIVALS

The new Dutch herring is scheduled to arrive in New York City today, where you can find it at the Grand Central Oyster Bar and Russ & Daughters (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Grand Central Oyster Bar, Grand Central Terminal, lower level, 212-490-6650
Russ & Daughters, 179 East Houston St., 212-475-4880
Restaurant Aquavit, 65 East 55th St., 212-307-7311

It’s that time of year again when the Hollandse Nieuwe Haring from Scheveningen arrives on these shores, after first being sampled by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. Beginning on June 6 and continuing for approximately three weeks, the Grand Central Oyster Bar will be serving the Silver of the Sea from a special cart (marked De Haringkoning — the Herring King) in a cozy nook by the bar, accompanied by chopped egg, diced raw onion, and seeded flatbread, along with genever (Dutch gin) as desired. Each bite is a delectable taste sensation that should be slowly savored, never rushed. You can also delight in the new catch at Russ & Daughters, where the marvelous matjes herring, two fillets attached at the tail, are available for takeout at the counter (although you should strongly consider ordering in advance). In addition, on June 26, the Lower East Side mainstay will be hosting its annual Russ & Daughters Herring Pairing at the Astor Center ($75), where Kyo Ya chef Chikara Sono will prepare a special menu inspired by his native Hokkaido’s herring heritage, and the Danny Fox Trio will provide musical entertainment. And from June 11 to 23, Aquavit will hold its annual Herring Festival, with a three-course prix fixe lunch ($35) Monday to Friday and, on June 15-16 and 22-23, a buffet smörgåsbord lunch ($32) or dinner ($42) that includes matjes herring and rhubarb-chervil herring. Advice columnist Ann Landers once said, “If you want to catch trout, don’t fish in a herring barrel.” Well, this month, fishing in a herring barrel is definitely the way to go.

ANISH KAPOOR

Anish Kapoor’s monumental Cor-Ten steel creation fills Gladstone’s 21st St. space (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Gladstone Gallery
515 West 24th St., 530 West 21st St.
Tuesday – Saturday through June 9, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
www.gladstonegallery.com
anish kapoor slideshow

In May 2008, Mumbai-born, London-based sculptor Anish Kapoor inaugurated Gladstone’s second Chelsea space with a solo show at both of the gallery’s locations. He is now back at 515 West 24th St. and 530 West 21st St. with a pair of very different exhibits that continues his exploration of materiality, mass, and form. Best known for such large installations as “Memory,” which blocked off Guggenheim visitors in early 2010, “Sky Mirror,” which dazzled people at Rockefeller Center in fall 2006, and the monumental reflective “Cloud Gate” (familiarly known as “The Bean”) in Chicago’s Millennium Park, Kapoor most often works with mirrored surfaces and Cor-Ten steel, solid materials that emphasize strength and firmness as well as mystery and fun. And so it is at 21st St., where an enormous round steel sculpture, reminiscent of “Memory,” rests against a beam in the center of the space, a vast hole on one side inviting visitors to peer into its darkness. The rust-colored engineering marvel is like a nonthreatening UFO that has somehow impossibly landed indoors in Chelsea, where people can walk around it and stick their head inside, calling out to hear an echo.

Anish Kapoor’s concrete forest winds through Gladstone’s 24th St. gallery (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

It is a striking complement to the installation at 24th St., where Kapoor has created an intriguing forest of nearly two dozen gray concrete sculptures that appear to be light and fragile, making one afraid to get too close for fear of knocking one of the abstract trees over or chipping off some bark when walking through the various pathways. Three years ago, Kapoor teamed with Factum Arte to create a procedure to print cement in three dimensions using an “Identity Engine [that] is a shit machine that farts and craps its way along its ordained path, transforming concrete into stigmergic, self-organised structures. Wounds and gashes, pleats and folds emerge at will and either self-heal or continue to rupture,” he wrote in his book Unconformity and Entropy. While the poured-concrete pieces at Gladstone are not quite as scatological as the earlier concrete sculptures he showed at the Royal Academy, they are like rising, spiral Rorschach tests where you can see what you want to see.

THE LIZA COLBY SOUND

The Liza Colby Sound will be shaking things up at Mercury Lounge and Lucille’s this month

Tuesday, June 5, Mercury Lounge, 217 East Houston St., 212-260-4700, $10, 10:30
Friday, June 15, Lucille’s at B. B. King’s, 237 West 42nd St., 212-997-4144, $5-$7, 9:00
www.myspace.com/thelizacolbysound

Once in a while you’re lucky enough to catch a band firing on all cylinders, and it’s a visceral experience that gets your toes tapping, your head nodding, and your ass shaking all at once. The Liza Colby Sound is this type of combo — sort of a rock and soul hybrid, tight beyond belief, that meshes a ’60s guitar sound with the powerhouse vocal presence and physicality of a lead singer who can channel prime-era Tina Turner and Janis Joplin while still rocking a style completely her own. As a performer, Connecticut native Colby is all charisma, by turns unaffected and convivial, or sultry and arresting — playing it as the moment (or song selection) calls for. . . . With a set of belt-’em-out pipes and a penchant for provocative attire, she demands attention from the eyes and your ears. And lest they be mistaken for a backing band, the Sound’s sound is a big part of the equation, too. The crisp and resonant guitar/drums/bass and spot-on co-vocals are anchored by New York scene veterans Adam and CP Roth and Alec Morton, forming a fine counterpoint to Colby onstage, with the arrangements and songwriting all benefiting from the unit’s cohesive vibe. With a growing following, great original material (and stellar taste in mining the occasional cover), and a well-received six-track EP, High Yellow, released last summer, the Liza Colby Sound seem to be hitting their stride. Colby is celebrating her birthday on June 5 with a show at the Mercury Lounge with Brooklyn-based psychedelic blues band the Juggs, then will be back on June 15 at Lucille’s at BB King’s headlining a bill with Miami Cake & Donuts. Seeing them live is more than recommended. It should be required. A toe-tapping, head-nodding, foot-stomping, fist-pumping, ass-shaking good time is guaranteed.

NEIL YOUNG AND JONATHAN DEMME IN CONVERSATION

Neil Young and Jonathan Demme take viewers on quite a ride in latest collaboration

92nd St. Y
Kaufmann Concert Hall
Lexington Avenue at 92nd St.
Thursday, June 7, $29-$44, 7:30
www.92y.org

For thirty years, Canadian rocker Neil Young has been making movies tied to his music, often combining live concert footage with behind-the-scenes glimpses, fictional stories, and documentary interviews. He’s worked with such directors as Bernard Shakey, his cinematic alter ego, on such films as Journey Through the Past, Human Highway, Rust Never Sleeps, and Greendale as well as such well-known names as Michael Lindsay-Hogg (Neil Young in Berlin) and Jim Jarmusch (Year of the Horse). But it’s his continuing collaboration with Oscar-winning filmmaker Jonathan Demme that has proved most revelatory, in such fascinating and probing movies as 2006’s Neil Young: Heart of Gold, 2009’s Neil Young: Trunk Show, and the upcoming Neil Young Journeys, which follows Young on the final night of his recent solo tour and driving around his Ontario hometown in his 1956 Ford Crown Victoria. On June 7, Young and Demme will be at the 92nd St. Y to talk about what makes them work so well together.

MY CHILDREN! MY AFRICA!

Athol Fugard play looks at growing unrest in South Africa and the call for liberation over education (photo by Joan Marcus)

The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Extended through June 17, $25 through June 10, $75 after
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org

The year of Athol Fugard, who will turn eighty on June 11, continues with the captivating My Children! My Africa! Following the Roundabout production of The Road to Mecca and the Signature revival of Blood Knot, the latter is now also staging the South African playwright’s 1989 work, set five years earlier in an Eastern Cape Karoo town soon to be under siege. A white teenager named Isabel (Allie Gallerani), who comes from a wealthy family, is debating Thami (Stephen Tyrone Williams), a black teen, about women’s rights, specifically regarding education. The battle takes place in a classroom run by the inspiring teacher Mr. M (James A. Williams). Impressed by each of their performances, Mr. M asks them to team up for a public contest on nineteenth-century English poetry, an idea to which they both heartily agree despite the rare mixing of the races. But their training sessions are soon interrupted by growing unrest in the Location, where black students are preparing to march for liberation over education, pitting Thami against both Mr. M and Isabel, although for different reasons, leading to a surprising and shocking climax. Echoing the simmering anti-Apartheid movement that would soon explode, My Children! My Africa! serves as a microcosm of that revolutionary moment in time, in which the younger generation fought with the older generation and whites and blacks were enemies. Directed by Tony Award-winning actor, writer, and director Ruben Santiago-Hudson and featuring interstitial music by Bobby McFerrin, the play gives each actor the opportunity to deliver a long soliloquy directly to the audience, explaining who they are and what they stand for, without being didactic and obvious; the show often teeters just on the edge of clichédom but only crosses the line in the very last, wholly unnecessary scene. Otherwise, My Children! My Africa! is a stirring, beautifully acted examination of fading tradition, racial and class tension, and the inherent value of a good education.

KOREAN MOVIE NIGHT: FORBIDDEN QUEST

Epic Korean historical romance goes from titillation to tragedy

EPIC ROMANCE: FORBIDDEN QUEST (EUMRANSEOSAENG) (Kim Dae-woo, 2006)
Tribeca Cinemas
54 Varick St. at Laight St.
Tuesday, June 5, free, 7:00
Series concludes Tuesday, June 19
212-759-9550
www.koreanculture.org
www.tribecacinemas.com

Sex can be a very dangerous game, as clearly displayed in the epic Korean historical drama Forbidden Quest. After being labeled a coward for not filing an appeal after the brutal beating of his brother, investigations officer Kim (Han Suk-kyu) is summoned by the king to track down a forger who replaced an original painting by his favorite concubine, Jung-bin (Kim Min-jeong), with an exact copy. Kim seeks help from the Angel of Death, justice administrator Lee (Lee Beom-soo), the very man who was behind the near killing of Kim’s brother, to catch the forger, but in so doing he discovers the hidden world of erotic literature, where a mysterious figure named In Bong has become a hero to the women of the community as he churns out dirty book after dirty book that are sold in secret. A well-respected writer and scholar, Kim is at first taken aback by the existence of this illegal underground literary sensation, but soon he immerses himself in it, taking the pen name Chu Wol Sek and turning out hotly anticipated sordid tales involving a lady of the royal court, inspired by his continuing contact with Jung-bin. But when he takes things too far, a scandal breaks out that threatens violence and death. Written and directed by Kim Dae-woo (The Servant), Forbidden Quest is an engrossing, erotically charged drama of loyalty, fidelity, honor, betrayal, and responsibility, driven by a strong lead performance by Han (Green Fish, The President’s Last Bang), who is always cool, calm, and collected as things swirl around him, showing a Zen-like resolve even in the most extreme of circumstances. But even he can’t help but crack a few smiles when using his male copiers to act out potential sex scenes for his novels. Forbidden Quest is screening for free June 5 at Tribeca Cinemas as part of the Korean Cultural Service film series “Epic Romance,” which concludes June 19 with Kim Yong-gyun’s The Sword with No Name.

SPACE PROGRAM: MARS

Tom Sachs takes visitors on a trip to Mars in the Park Avenue Armory (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Ave. at 67th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through June 17, $12, 12 noon – 7:00 pm (open till 9:00 on Fridays)
212-933-5812
www.armoryonpark.org
tomsachsmars.com
space program: mars slideshow

You don’t have to have grown up dreaming of becoming an astronaut to get a huge kick out of Tom Sachs’s immersive “Space Program: Mars” experience at the Park Avenue Armory. In September 2007, the New York native and his well-trained team traveled to the moon at the Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles, but this time around he sets his sights much bigger, as Sachs and crew have filled the armory’s expansive Wade Thompson Drill Hall with all the elements needed to journey to and explore the Red Planet. Curated by Creative Time’s Anne Pasternak and the armory’s Kristy Edmunds, “Space Program: Mars” begins with “Working to Code,” a series of short films (10 Bullets, Color, Love Letter to Plywood, Space Camp, How to Sweep, several made with Van Neistat) that detail Sachs’s bricolage DIY artistic process and hysterically precise rules (“When in doubt, leave it out! Or Die!”) that must be followed while toiling in the studio. You need to pay close attention to the very droll and funny movies if you want to pass the indoctrination test that is the only way to gain entrance to the life-size Lunar Excursion Module. (If you want a head start, you can check out all of the films in advance here.) And you’re going to want to get into the LEM, which is loaded with fascinating pieces that playfully evoke the real thing.

The Mission Control station makes sure everything is up and running in immersive space experience (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Working with NASA, Sachs and his crew of thirteen men and women painstakingly, and with a fabulous dose of tongue-in-cheek humor, re-created a multimedia Mission Control station, surveillance cameras, refrigeration units (including the Vader Fridge in the shape of the evil Death Lord), a miniature launch pad and docking target, a Mars Excursion Roving Vehicle, helmets and space suits, an ID station, an Incinolet, a Mobile Quarantine Facility inside a 1972 Winnebago, a cooking area, a clean air room, and other items necessary for achieving and surviving intergalactic travel, all put together with wood, metal, foam core, glue, nails, and other found materials ― resulting in a number of essential parts that actually work. NASA might have canceled the space shuttle program, but Sachs is reaffirming the continuing need for manned missions ― while also displaying his unique and endearing artistic sensibilities. And don’t miss the Museum of the Moon in the Veterans Room out in the hallway, where you can delve into the previous moon mission. The installation is up through June 17 and features several special activities. On June 7, Sachs and his team will conduct live demonstrations of the program’s flight plan. From June 9 through 16, Sachs and his Grummans will be holding mini-demonstrations, including a rescue mission, daily at 1:00 and 3:00, along with a Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse bicycle race scheduled for 6:00 every evening. On June 9-10 at 10:00 am, children ages five to twelve and their parents or guardians can take part in the interactive workshop “Life on Mars: Imagining the Incredible” with members of the Armory Artists Corps. On June 16, you can have “Breakfast with Mars Scientists,” as Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists Gregg Vane, Kevin Hand, and Tommaso Rivellini will join Sachs and moderator Lawrence Weschler for an in-depth conversation. The grand finale takes off immediately following, as Sachs and company will lead a real-time flight-plan endurance demonstration that runs until around midnight, with visitors allowed to come and go as they please, although you’ll have to get back in line for reentry.